Building a base

One of the most common faults in the functional fitness community is programming excruciating workouts and thinking that it is the only way to achieve fitness goals. This style of training will most likely lead to injury and could possibly create a stigma. The goal in the functional fitness is to get members looking better, feeling better, and moving better. How can we as a fitness community help members achieve these goals? The answer is help them build a base. The phrase “build a base” means that a member or an athletes body is in a position to complete complex movements properly and be able to maintain the same effort through out a workout. The next question is well how can I help members build a base? By applying combinations of movements that are tolerable according to skill level and effective in triggering a positive physiological response. Building a base is ensuring all of the simple, minor details are intact in order to create good movement patterns and ultimately create a positive change in an individuals life. Building a base is not a quick process, it is not an extravagant process but it is an absolutely necessary process to ensure that members are at their best. It does not take complicated multi joint movements to help some one to achieve their goals. The process of building a base is as follows: Static holds, unilateral movements, bilateral movements and multi joint movements. These categories can be broken down further and expanded on but for the sake of simplicity we will not break the movements down any further. Static holds allows an individual to activate certain muscles with out the risk of creating bad movement patterns. Abolish any asymmetries an athlete may have through unilateral movements, then bilateral movements may be introduced into a training plan. The final step would be to add multi joint movements only after the standards for single joint movements are met. This methodical approach to fitness can reduce the risk of injury and improve movement quality, which is the ultimate goal for our community.